


Tales Told in Egypt

by Sanj



Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-01
Updated: 2008-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanj/pseuds/Sanj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imprisoned in Egypt, Joseph tells stories of his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tales Told in Egypt

The prison has only three rooms, and Zuberi is trapped there, though only until Pharaoh is in a good humor again. Zuberi has done no harm; he has only the crime of being his father's son. If his father has stolen coin from the Pharaoh's coffers, what does that say of Zuberi?

Until his father returns from Hennen-nesut, Zuberi is a hostage here, in the part of the prison where they keep the prisoners of rank and station. It could be worse -- he could be among murderers or poisoners, or simply among common men, sharing porridge from a bowl and pissing in an open privy.

Beyond that, Zuberi knows he is fortunate to have very little idea of what "worse" would entail. He is the son of Methethe, a business agent of the Pharaoh. Until now, he has been kept safely from any chance of harm, learning the writing of the priests. He is no kind of laborer, and until this week has not been outside the temple for some five years.

But if he has learned nothing else from the past few days, Zuberi has learned that the fortunes of men can turn with the wind. Zuberi's own luck would have taught him this, he thinks, had not Joseph of Canaan served as a better example.

Zuberi can hear his warm, strange accent coming from the next room. Joseph is from the tribes of herdsman from the east, from Canaan across the sea. If his report is to be believed, he was once treated as a prince among his own people.

Zuberi thinks that he would say the same, though, if he found himself in a Canaanite prison -- _but I was Zuberi, a prince of Egypt,_ he would say, hoping that he would be treated more kindly.

Still, Joseph looks the part of a desert lord, tall and slender, his severe features carved in clay, wind-scarred. They say he seduced Potiphar's wife -- Zuberi could believe it, except that Joseph has a quality about him that warms people, makes them trust him.

Perhaps that's where Potiphar went wrong.

The other men in the prison are better-known to Zuberi, and caught up in the same affair that has endangered his father Methethe. One of the priests who keeps the accounts of Pharaoh's riches has noticed that money has been stolen. It has been carefully pilfered over time, by a trusted officer in the Pharaoh's employ: a member of the household, or one of his agents or ambassadors.

A few others have been acquitted, alibis and excuses -- and probably briberies -- made in their favor. The wine steward, called Rehotep, and the baker, Amuni, are the only two suspects of rank left in the city. Zuberi's father and one of the Pharaoh's other men, Nefer-Ptah, are still away on business. Nefer-Ptah's sons are here as well, two small boys called Mosi and Pili. The boys play quietly with each other, uncertain of why they are there, but content so long as they are clean and fed.

Joseph, a foreign slave, would not be in the relative comfort of the Pharaoh's own prison were he not assigned to tend to Rehotep and Amuni's needs, and to keep Pharaoh's watchful eye on Zuberi and the boys. His good nature has Rehotep and Amuni entirely charmed.

Zuberi as well. One can't help but like the man, strange as his accent and gestures are. He was a lad of good fortune, loved by his father, until he was captured and sold into slavery. Joseph downplays this, stressing the guardianship that his people's god has given him since, putting him in Potiphar's palace, amid luxury his people could not imagine.

"And now you are a prisoner," Amuni says.

"Everything happens for a purpose," Joseph says calmly. "Everything. All we can do is what we can do. And then we wait and see what God brings." Joseph has only one god, and he speaks of him as though he were a personal friend. Even though this god has cast Joseph into slavery and dishonor; even though he is in prison.

Zuberi doesn't think much of Joseph's god, but figures it's not his business, if Joseph is satisfied with him.

The men all pass the time with talk, and Zuberi joins them as they eke out each other's stories. Amuni was born to a soldier, but followed his mother in the kitchens until he won an apprenticeship; Rehotep was the son of a concubine whose startling good looks gained him fortune in the former Pharaoh's household.

But Joseph's people are strange, and his home far away; it's his stories that they seek in the evenings to pass the long hours. Joseph seems pleased enough to act as storyteller, and it's easy to forget, for a few hours, why they are even together in this place.

Zuberi wonders if Joseph tells the stories to entertain them, or because he's comforting himself with the idea of home. But that's not his business either.

Rehotep is in the front room even now, still eating his bread and a bowl of stew. Zuberi comes in to find Joseph telling the end of a story of how his father Jacob bought his elder brother Esau's birthright for just such a bowl of lentils.

"The worth was not in the lentils, you see," Joseph says, shaking his head with a fond amusement, "but for lentils well-timed, which is far more precious."

"Esau must have hated Jacob," Zuberi offers, pouring Jacob water from the ewer on the table. Storytelling is thirsty work.

"Oh, he did indeed," says Joseph. "But they were born fighting. Their mother said she could feel them kicking at each other even in the womb."

* * *

_The story of the two brothers_

Now, my father Jacob was born in the same hour as his brother, Esau, and was the lesser of the two brothers in birth, but not in cleverness.

Esau is a great ruddy man, with hair all over him, and a booming laugh. My father was as unlike his brother as two men born of the same womb could be -- he is smaller and quieter, though really only by comparison to his brother. I am said to favor him, so I imagine he was much then as you see me now.

My grandmother Rebekah, as I have said, felt her two sons fighting even from the womb. She used to say that Esau would kick when they passed the woods and wild places, trying to get out. And Jacob would kick when they passed his grandfather Abraham's tent, for he loved the old man even before he knew him.

Esau and Jacob were not raised closely as children, for Rebekah had dreamt that one would do the other harm. (My family has the gift of true prophecy, you see. Therefore we place great stock in dreams.)

At any rate, Jacob did indeed spend his time in Abraham's tent, learning the ways of our people and the history of our forefathers, all the way back to Shem and Eber; all the way back to the first man God made. And he dwelt there until Abraham died.

They say Abraham was a hundred and seventy-five years old, and that Isaac his son lived even longer. I never met either of them, but my father says it is true, and he is not a young man either.

Now Esau was active and lusty, not as clever as Jacob. He was a hunter, and married young to two Hittite women. Old Isaac, their father, preferred Esau, who reminded him of his own youth, while Rebekah preferred Jacob.

Esau would have had the inheritance of his father's house, being first-born, but Jacob had bought his birthright for a bowl of lentils, as I have told you.

My mother told me once that Esau was in no danger of starvation, but that my father took advantage of Esau's ignorance -- as well as his hunger, of course. She said Esau offered up the birthright of Abraham and Isaac much as one would offer up the promise of a promise, for he did not understand or have any need for what Jacob sought.

I wasn't there; I don't know. But what I do know is that a few years later old Isaac -- who was blind by then, and as old as memory -- lay fearing his death. And he begged of his eldest son Esau to go and hunt wild venison, and bring it to him with strong drink, so that he would be in a good frame of mind to give a blessing -- the birthright blessing -- to his beloved eldest son.

Now Rebekah knew that Esau had sold that blessing, and she heard Isaac offer to give it to him anyway. So she called Jacob and had him slay a kid he kept in the field, and bring it to his father with strong drink. She even put goatskins on Jacob's body, so that Isaac would think it was Esau -- for Esau was extremely hairy. Even as a baby he had a pelt of hair, his own and Jacob's both.

My father obeyed his mother, as he tells me. Or he took advantage of the offer, as his wife Leah says it... but one way or another, he received the birthright blessing. Isaac was a prophet and the son of prophets, so his blessing had great power in it: he spoke the words of God himself.

Thinking he was Esau, Isaac proclaimed that Jacob's brothers would bow down to him. God would curse his enemies and bless his friends. And because the spirit of our God was in him, what he said was so.

And, oh, when Esau returned! Again he came home from the hunt to find that Joseph had supplanted him. It was not to be borne; he flew into a rage, saying that he would kill Joseph ... just as soon as his father was safely dead and buried. Esau was not known for his wits, but he did know that he had no hope of any inheritance if Isaac knew him to be a kinslayer.

Now Rebekah, she was the sister of Laban, who was master over the sons of Nahor, in Paddan-Aram. So she said in old Isaac's hearing that she would have no more Hittite daughters-in-law in her house, for Esau's wives were a great burden to her. And Isaac took the hint, and charged Jacob to travel north to Paddan-Aram, to seek himself a wife.

(Of course, Esau, hearing the same complaint, took it upon himself to marry, hoping the third time would yield up a wife his mother could live with. He chose an Ishmaelite -- our closer kin -- thereby giving himself a third wife to support and another daughter-in-law for my poor grandmother to deal with. My father says that Esau was forever trying to please Rebekah, but he never was very good at it.)

In this way, then, Jacob left home honorably before Esau sought to kill him outright. And he traveled north to Paddan-Aram.

Now you must understand that to our people, everything has a purpose. Esau and Jacob were born to contend with each other, as I have said. But even this was part of God's plan, for had Esau not been a real threat to Jacob, then he never would have left his home. And then he would never have found Beth-El, the gateway to heaven... but that is, I think, a different story.

* * *

"Amuni, come here!" Rehotep calls a few days later. The sun is quite high, but it is still morning, and Zuberi has only just awakened and washed at his face with the tepid water they are given.

It is easy to be lazy here; Zuberi has learned that one of the best uses of one's time in prison is simply to sleep. Nefer-Ptah's sons, curled together on a pallet, apparently agree with his assessment. Mosi's foot is in Pili's mouth, and Zuberi can only laugh, contrasting them in his mind with the brothers in Joseph's stories.

"Amuni!" Rehotep calls again, and Zuberi creeps in on the stout baker's heels. "You too, young Zuberi. Listen to what Joseph has told me." He is grinning broadly -- whatever it is, the tale is an amusing one.

"It is really not all that unusual, good Rehotep," Joseph is protesting, but smiling as he does so, pouring out cups of water and setting bread before Zuberi and Amuni.

Rehotep seems content to be here, Zuberi thinks, and not for the first time he wonders if this is because the wine steward is innocent and has a clear conscience, or because he is guilty and has no conscience at all. "It is not just poor silly Esau, who kept marrying until he found a bride his mother liked. No, they all do that there. Joseph's father has four wives!"

They all are laughing at the idea of such prosperity, such foolishness -- what woman would be a fourth wife to a man, even a wealthy one? But Joseph is not as amused, and corrects Rehotep, though his tone is as deferential as always. "He has one wife," Joseph says. "Two concubines. And a second wife, my mother, who is dead."

The sorrow in Joseph's tone is beyond his years, and in it is more than mere correction; his voice sobers them instantly. Amuni grunts over his stale bread in the resounding silence.

"What was she like?" Zuberi asks.

"My mother," Joseph begins, "was the most beautiful woman in the world."

* * *

  
_ The story of the two sisters_

It is important you understand that my mother was beautiful, for that is the first thing my father knew of her, and it is almost the only thing he knew before he asked for her hand in marriage.

Her name was Rachel, and at the time Jacob traveled to Paddan-Aram, she kept her father's sheep. Now usually, this was a job for a boy, perhaps one Zuberi's age. But Laban's sons were by a different mother, and still very young. And he might have had a hired man to do the work, but sheep are like gold coins to a herdsman. You don't place them in someone's care unless you also have their trust.

So Rachel was not merely beautiful -- tall, with skin pure and gold like good honey, and hair as dark midnight down to her waist -- no, she was also sturdy. Capable. You aren't used to such women here. For us a beautiful woman is not merely fair or clever or sweet-voiced. She must be strong enough to carry on through heavy work, to bear many sons, to travel leagues without complaint or fear.

And my mother, it seemed to Jacob, was all of these things, even at a glance. Though it was still only a few days from his vision at Beth-El, the sight of my mother and her flock must have been a vision of its own.

He had stopped at the well, not far from the road, and thought to drink, but the men there would wait for their beasts, and also for Rachel, who was last to arrive.

Perhaps he thought he saw another angel of the Lord, but I think rather he saw a creature of the earth; a vision of water in the desert sun.

And if I flatter her with such poetry, it is because you must understand how completely my father was taken by my mother's beauty, or the next twenty years of his life will make no sense whatsoever.

For my mother's part -- and it was she who told me this story first, when I was little older than Mosi over there -- my mother saw Jacob for the first time when he came, still weary from his journey, and helped to move the heavy cover off of the well. He was courteous and well-made, but more importantly, he was Jacob, son of Isaac, from Canaan, and Rachel had been told his name like a promise every day of her life.

Messages, you can well imagine, were rare between Jacob's mother and her brother Laban, but Rebekah had sent word many years ago that she had borne twins, and hoped that Laban had daughters who would be suitable for them.

An alliance between Rebekah's children and Laban's was considered an advantageous one, you see; they were close enough kin to keep their combined wealth within the tribe, but their children distant enough in blood to make strong children.

And Laban could count -- at least in those days. His sister had two sons, and he had two daughters. It seemed only right that Rachel, his second daughter, would be married to Jacob, Rebekah's second son. Thus Rachel knew Jacob's name as well as she knew her own. When he kissed her in the greeting between kinsmen, she was overcome with joy, and took him immediately to her father's house. For at last her promised husband had come.

And he came to Laban's house, who was his uncle, and said he had been told to bide there a while. "This pleases me," said Laban, "for I'm so short-handed my daughter is out with the sheep. Come and work with me until my sons have grown, and tell me what your wages will be."

And by then there had been great feasting and merriment, and Jacob said, "I will work seven years to pay the bride-price for your daughter Rachel!" It was a generous offer. And even though he had been drinking, and might have excused himself, he held to his promise the next morning, and became Laban's herdsman.

Now Jacob did not know -- though perhaps he guessed, he never said -- that he had given an insult to my mother's sister, Leah, by asking to marry Rachel. For among Laban's people the eldest daughter always married first, and Leah had been a woman for many years. She had bloomed long before her sister, though they were only a year apart, and her father had not found a husband for her.

Leah had been a woman for four years by then, and had not found a husband, while Rachel had been a woman only six months, and here was the favored son of a prosperous relative come to marry her.

Everyone had hoped, as I said, that Esau would also come when he was of age, and that he would marry Leah. But of course Jacob told them that Esau was already married -- by then, already joined in marriage twice, and a third wife betrothed. I am certain, the way Jacob told it, that it seemed Esau was married to half of Heth.

Now Leah and Rachel, much like Esau and Jacob, looked nothing alike, and Leah had the strangest blue eyes -- has them to this day, if God has kept her alive. She cannot take the sun well, nor can she do fine work with her hands. But she was healthy and tall and well-made, and if she hadn't had Rachel for a sister, she would have been as attractive a wife as any -- to Jacob, or to any other man.

But she did have Rachel, who was still fresh and lovely as a white rose, with black hair to her waist, and a laugh like a bird, and brown eyes as sweet as a ewe lamb. Every man who saw them together saw only Rachel; my father was no exception.

Rachel once told me it was clear that Leah was greatly disappointed to lose hope of marrying Esau, but she hid it well. And no one truly thought that she would lack suitors for seven years. Weak-eyed or not, she was a lovely young woman, and the eldest daughter of the most prominent tribe in Paddan-Aram. Laban had no legitimate sons except through concubines, so her position was high and her dowry generous.

Jacob said he had never doubted that there were any number of men interested in Leah, and some of them quite respectable matches even for Laban's eldest. He never understood why Laban didn't arrange a good marriage for her. He says he spent those years working to the utmost of his strength, and courting Rachel in every chance he had to breathe. He noticed and liked Leah, but he treated her as a kinswoman, no more and no less. He never knew the strength of her regard for him.

But if you ask Leah, Leah says she felt it was as obvious as if she had painted her face like a harlot and worn red. Leah too loved Jacob, wanted him. Though she wanted her sister to marry the man she loved, she couldn't accept any other man's hand. She was willful and clever; she angered her suitors, or dropped their wine on them at table, and once lied outright that she was already in love with a goatherd.

Leah was content in her father's house; her father's concubines were only useful at their spindles, and Rachel made a better shepherd than she did a cook. Leah served as the lady of a household of hundreds, and she did it graciously, with Rachel to help her. Thinking they would marry brothers, she and Rachel had never been far from each other, and did not imagine a day when they would be parted.

I think it was this, more than anything, that led Rachel to give her wedding clothes to Leah, the night before the marriage was to take place, and to bid her sister to marry her promised husband.

Everyone who tells this story says that it was Laban's idea, to switch the bride for her sister -- they say it was his will to ensnare Jacob, who was by that time the cornerstone of Laban's success. And that in so doing Laban would be certain to keep Leah at home, as well as Rachel -- both women a valuable part of his household.

But Rachel told me once that she had come upon Leah, the day before her wedding, choking in a kind of fit, so desperately was she trying not to cry loud. Leah told Rachel only that she couldn't bear the disgrace of it; that Rachel had always supplanted her. And now every man in from Paddan-Aram to Heth would say that she was unmarriageable, because her sister had been married before her.

Rachel, as I have said, had a good heart in her. She told me she couldn't bear to cause her sister pain -- to find her happiness the end of all of Leah's chances. "Marry Jacob," she said. "Marry him tomorrow. Wear the veil, pretend you're me. When the night is over, he will have no choice but to keep you as his wife."

Leah stared at her, open-mouthed. Here was everything she had wanted, and she could have it without admitting her folly and resentment. "He loves _you_," she said, and I can see her shaking her head, like so. "And it would dishonor Father. And Jacob could not forgive you such a deception."

"Jacob? Jacob deceived his own father while the poor man lay in his deathbed. Jacob tricked his own brother out of his birthright for a bowl of stew. Jacob will be angry, but he will know what he deserves. And he will stay, even if Father makes him work another seven years.

"And besides," Rachel added, "I am certain I can get Father to think it was all his idea."

* * *

"So did anyone know the bride was false?" Amuni asks, and by this time even Mosi and Pili are perched on the table, their faces rapt.

"No one knew," Joseph says. "Or if my father knew, he never said. Rachel had even cut the end of her braid and woven it into Leah's own, so that her hair would seem the right length. They were the same height, and walked the same way -- the only difference in them was their faces and their tempers. With both hidden, it's likely that my father never knew he had married Leah."

"But you think not," Zuberi says.

Joseph folds his hands together, like a priest, and taps his beard. And then he shrugs. "It was not a bad trade for anyone, and I can't imagine Jacob didn't see as much. I have never heard he was very angry -- especially not when Laban told him he could have Rachel, as well, in only a week -- and pay her seven years after they were wed.

"No, Jacob has always known a good trade when he sees it. By Laban's treachery, he earned not just the woman he loved, but her sister, who was the left hand to Rachel's right in all things. He had both of the most marriageable women in Paddan-Aram fighting each other to come into his tent, and they arranged everything from the meals to the laundry in the way that best pleased Jacob. He was honor-bound to stay seven more years safely away from his brother, who had sworn to kill him. And he was still the ill-used hero of the story, which was told for a hundred leagues in any direction.

"Laban and his daughters may have tricked Jacob, but I have no doubt that Jacob won."

"Perhaps," Rehotep suggests, "it was your father's plan all along."

Joseph frowns. "I hope not. It would have been far too cruel to Leah."

* * *

Leah, you see, was a strong and fertile woman. She bore children easily, and barely had to lay her hand in her husband's before he got her with child. Which was just as well, for Jacob was only rarely in her bed.

It was Rachel that Jacob had worked for, Rachel who had been his prize and his dream for seven years of hard work. And though he could see the justice in the arrangement, he did not feel the same way toward both sisters. Leah was useful to him -- a good housekeeper, a conscientious mother to his sons, a companion for his beloved. But she was not the woman he had worked seven years to marry -- or rather, fourteen, by the time his tenure was complete.

And yet, Rachel did not get him sons. Or daughters. Her womb was lifeless, while Leah could barely breathe without conceiving: one, two, three, four sons in as many years. Rachel saw Jacob's face in each of her sister's sons, watched Leah smiling and laughing as she taught her children, and she thought her heart would break for envy. "Give me children," she said to Jacob, "or else I shall die."

Jacob knew the fault was not his own; he had four healthy sons. "Am I God?" he asked her. "Only He can give you children." And he was saddened along with Rachel, for he wanted her child more than any of Leah's.

Now when they had married, Laban had given each of his daughters a maidservant -- I think they were sisters or cousins of one of his concubines, but I forget their birth. They were called Bilhah and Zilpah. It was Bilhah who was Rachel's handmaid, and Rachel made a gift of her to Jacob, to take as his concubine. And Bilhah bore children for Rachel, according to the custom of our people: two sons, Dan and Napthali.

This meant that Leah had lost the one advantage she had over Rachel, for now Rachel had children to love and raise, and she pleased Jacob again. Meanwhile, Leah had stopped bearing -- whether through God's will, or lack of Jacob's attention, or simply a woman's concern, I do not know. But she retaliated -- and by this time, it was war between the two sisters. She gave Jacob her maidservant, Zilpah.

And as I have said, Jacob was not a man to turn away from good fortune. Bilhah and Zilpah were younger than his wives, and very lovely. So in this way there were two more sons. And my father now had four wives, eight sons, and the respect of every man who heard his name, both for his skills as a husbandman and his extraordinary fortune as a husband.

But it was just as well that Jacob was often away in the fields, for at this time things were almost impossible in Laban's household. Leah and Rachel had stopped speaking to each other, and would communicate only through their maidservants.

"Tell Bilhah," Leah would say to Zilpah, "to tell her lady that dinner is nearly ready."

"Tell Zilpah," Rachel would say to Leah, "to say that the workmen have come for the harvesting, and her mistress will need to set aside more wine."

And it went on like this, Bilhah says, for weeks.

But during the harvest, Jacob's eldest son Reuben found mandrakes in the wheat fields. Leah was glad, for these have a powerful magic in them to grant women children, and she wanted to bear again.

When Rachel heard of the mandrakes, she humbled herself and went to Leah, and spoke to her directly. "Please," she said, "give me some of your son's mandrakes."

"Give you?" Leah said -- and Bilhah swears that Leah pitched a ewer at her sister's head, she was so angry. "Why would I give you anything? It's not enough you have my husband in your bed every night?"

"What good is he to me, or I to him, if I cannot bear him children? You have sons of your own, and I am barren, and I am far more wretched than you."

"You could not be," Leah said. "you could not possibly be wretched. You have everything I have ever wanted. How could you want any more?"

"None of his children call me mother. None of them has my face. You have four sons of your own, and Zilpah's besides -- you have everything."

And Bilhah says they stared at each other for a very long while, mouths agape. And then they fell instantly into each other's arms, and cried, and swore to share every good thing between them again... including their mandrakes and their husband.

Now Jacob had been warned by the harvesters that something was wrong with the women in Laban's house -- and there is no doubt in my mind that he knew something of the cause. But when he come home, imagining any number of tactics would be on display, instead he found only his two lovely wives, clean and dressed for a feast; his concubines settling dinner in the kitchens; and Laban's house all run with the same steady competence that Jacob had come to expect from his women.

Leah rose from where she and Rachel were sitting and came up to him, and there was a laughter in her blue eyes that Jacob had never seen before. "You will come and sleep in my bed tonight," she told him, "for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes." And behind him, he could hear Rachel laughing. It was a sound, he told me, that he had not heard in many years.

* * *

"Now you have the advantage of most people who hear this story, for I am telling it," Joseph says, and rises from the table to get more water from the cask placed inside the door.

"And therefore it is a good story," the baker says politely, clearly confused.

Rehotep shakes his head. "He means, good Amuni, that we know eventually the pretty wife did bear a child, for here he stands."

"In fact, she bore me and also my brother Benjamin," Joseph agrees, "though she did not survive that second birth. We were running again, by then -- there is yet another story in why we were running. And we went up to Beth-El, at last, back to the gate of heaven where Jacob once laid his head.

"And they say he spoke to God, but I don't know. My mother died shortly thereafter, just as Benjamin was born."

"You must have been your father's favorite," Zuberi says. "His favorite wife's eldest son."

"Jacob loved me dearly, and I him," Joseph agrees. His voice is shaky, a little, and Zuberi watches him drink the rest of his glass.

Zuberi can't help but ask. "So why are you in Egypt?" He knows it's another story.

Joseph leans back, gazing up at the low ceiling. "I can tell you how," he says at length, "but for now only God could tell you why."

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Port in the Yuletide 2007 challenge. It was epic levels of fun to write.
> 
> For betas, I had the help of Kelyn, my Wise Reader and a fantastic storyteller, and Kass, whose attention to language is matched only by her attention to Torah.


End file.
